A cash machine is a device for managing cash and include automated teller machines (ATMs), money deposit machines, and cash recycling machines. Cash machines are also called bank machines. Valuables include coupons, travel tickets, event tickets, and vouchers having a cash value.
Cash machines enable the customer to withdraw cash from or deposit it to his checking or credit card account through self-service. Some machines also dispense foreign currencies or inform the customer about the account balance and past transactions. Financial institutions often operate such devices.
To withdraw money from a cash machine, a customer inserts a debit or credit card into the machine and enters a personal identification number (PIN). A central authorization office checks online to determine whether or not the personal identification number is correct and decides whether the payout can be made. Newer-generation cash machines also enable cash deposit. This procedure resembles that for depositing: The customer inserts the customer card into the machine. A cash-insertion slot then opens. The money is immediately checked for authenticity and booked to the customer's account. This way, the bank can also provide the money depositing service to its customers outside the office hours and the bank saves itself the enormous personnel expenses of operating a night depository. If the cash machine can recycle, verified money deposited by the customer can be paid out to subsequent customers whereby the bank decreases the labour of filling the machine.
Some cash machines feature a certified vault. A certified vault is one certified secure under any of a number of vault standards, such as CEN3 of the BSEN 12320 European Security standard. Money is housed in the certified vault.
Cash machines also have a service area in which the device's other components are housed. This service area is also termed an operator area. These machines are typically equipped with a receipt printer for receipts or also a bank-statement printer. Here a printer, that creates the receipt or the statement then outputs it to the customer, is installed in the cash machine.
Furthermore, a computer or computer is usually also provided in the device to operate the device.
Servicing is required during the product cycle for a cash machine's various elements, such as the printer or the computer. For example, this can be the refilling of printer paper, software updates, or replacement and repair of mechanical and electrical elements.
With the devices mentioned, the servicing procedure for the printer is usually arranged so that servicing requires opening the device. But by opening the device, it is possible that the servicing staff may have unauthorized access to money supplies or other machine internals or is able to reconnoitre them. Valuables as well as the vault's control units such as the hopper or bank-note collection and/or dispensing mechanism and their electrical leads essentially be arranged completely in the vault, preferably in a certified vault, while essentially all control electronics such as the computer, printer, and power supply is arranged in the service area. Advantageously, the vault and the service area feature separate locking systems.
Accordingly, the certified vault housing must still be opened, if the money- or value-containing or guiding parts arranged in this area need to be serviced. Various service personnel can then provide this. Ordinary service personnel can be employed for the more common and less security-related maintenance and service work in the service area, while for the less commonly arising maintenance and service work in the certified vault, other, possibly specially trained and trusted personnel, can be employed.
For instance, the documents US 2002/0020736 A1, U.S. Pat. No. 4,615,280 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,884,514 show machines for managing, collecting, and/or dispensing valuables. The service area will be opened especially often in this connection to service the account-statement and/or the receipt printer. Often, the relevant paper supplies, for instance bank statement forms or receipt paper rolls, will be replaced or supplemented. Likewise, ink or toner cartridges on the printers are regularly replaced. Due to the frequency of access caused by this, unmonitored personnel often obtain entry, or proper maintenance work is really no longer carefully monitored.
The controller arranged in the service area is vulnerable to manipulation. On the one hand there is the risk that the vault's control units will be manipulated during service work through access to the control electronics in the control and service area. More dangerous, because scarcely subject to service-work monitoring, is, however, manipulation of the control electronics so that, for instance, by installing software, the card readers can be manipulated in a way that unauthorized debit or credit cards are accepted with likewise unverified PIN numbers, so that at a certain time after the actual service work, withdrawals can be made by simply inserting the unauthorized debit or credit card.